Daily Practices

As I entered the pool, the age groupers I used to swim with were just getting out of their morning workout. I talked with the coach, and he told me what they got to do for their main set:
200, rest 1:00
175, rest :50
150, rest :40
125, rest :30
100, rest :20
75, rest :10
50, rest :05
25

The killer part was...One series through of EACH STROKE!

Well, that gave me the idea for my swim today... (stupid James as always)

After a short warmup, I went for the Fly round (only one worth doing IMO)
I did have a lane to myself for this too.
200 Fly - went 2:23, took a 1:00 rest
175 Fly - went about 2:10, took :50 rest...hugging the laneline for support...
150 Fly - well, more like a 50 Fly, and then give up.

I did end up going 2500 yards for the day, though my second half was a lot of kicking in the overcrowded lap lanes

A few good things from today...my Fly confidence is back...I've been scared to swim long fly all fall and winter, but know I need to get back into it.
Also nice to know I could do a semi-relaxed 2:23 from a push. Now just need to get into a meet someday to put a time on the board! Hopefully I can be under 2:10.

Knowing I can make the tough part, my next goal is to work at this set until I can complete the entire 900 yards of the descending distances. This will really help me get ready for this summer's LC Nationals, which I still wish were short course.

Managed to wake up early for the 5:30am lap swim...and found that none of my normal lap swim partners were there today. Luckily after nearly finishing my warmup, Pat showed up so I had a swim buddy...making the workout manageable.

3x (100 Free/100 Back)
(600 warmup)

4 x 300 Free Pull w/ paddles @ 4:00 (Pat did 250s on same interval)
went 3:28/3:24/3:19/3:14...feeling great too
50 ez
4 x 200 Free Pull w/ paddles @ 2:30 (Pat did 150s on same interval)
went 2:10/2:13/2:13/2:12
--had to decrease my pace interval down a bit so Pat wouldn't get too bored waiting for me...and made me work too It's good for me, but haven't done a 1:15/100 interval in a while
50 EZ
(2100/2700)

12 x 100 Free Pull w paddles @ 1:30
I just cruised these...and it almost felt like a cooldown set after the previous ones
(1200/3900)

It was at this point that my other regular training partner Jake showed up...about an hour late to the party. But...it gave me an excuse to train with him too. **Normally that would be the end of our swim...and even a little more yardage than normal...BUT...

300 Free cruise "warmup" during Jake's warmup
(300/4200)

12 x 150 Free swim - no toys @ 2:20 (Jake was doing kick on 4th length...he also swims with zoomers on to "keep up")
I held them around 1:45-1:49s with minimal effort...just cruising and extending the workout.
(1800/6000)

100 cooldown

-----------------------
6100 Yards...surprised the heck out of me...especially for only being on about 4 hours sleep after working last night til 11

And off to refuel at McD's....and maybe a nap before work this afternoon...but I doubt the nap will happen...kids home from school today.

I've been ramping my swimming back up...in hopes of being in tip top shape by the time this summer rolls around for LC Nationals in Gresham, Oregon...at the Mt Hood CC aquatic center.

That means...my 200 Fly needs to be able to handle 2 HUNDRED LOooooonnnnggg course meters of Fly. I'll get there eventually.

I pretty much swim on my own now, or with a few older friends in the early hours if I can wake up that early. Today was one day where I couldn't make the 5:30am swim, but got there at 7am to see them leaving. Because of a high school diving meet today, the pool was closing after 8:00am. nonetheless...I got in and made the best of my hour before lap swim ended.

100 Free warmup

Noticed the minutes and seconds converging on exactly 7:00am...so thought....what the hell..

Let's do a timed 1650!

Well, that went good for a bit...was 6:02ish at the 500, 12:15 at the 1000, and at the 1100 UGH...decided to grab my buoy and paddles to finish it out. Better than stopping altogether, right?
Ended the 1650 with a 19:50...and I believe I counted it right, so not a bad in practice swim with no warmup on 5 hours of sleep.

150 Floaty EZ Back cooldown

300 Flutter Kick w board

16 x 50s @ 1:00 (25 Free/25 Fly) held :35s at a moderate pace...did a full 50 Fly on the final one for :32

Just dropping in to say HI to everyone! I haven't really logged into USMS.org much over the past year with my whole house remodel thing going on. Well, phase 3 of 375 is almost done on the remodel, as I'm in the painting phase of the master bedroom, bathroom, and half the living room, along with the upstairs hallway and my MIL's room. Still lots to do.

But I did do a good thing (to make my wife happy, yet she hardly noticed) and took a load of 1.2 TONS to the dump yesterday. Mainly sheetrock, and old plywood from the old flooring. Also a few windows, a toilet, and other misc. garbage stuff. It's a great dryland workout if anyone wants to try moving 1.2 TONS twice over a few hours time.

Well, in swimming things, I'm still going at it, and actually on the upswing from last summer/fall. I was way out of shape then, concentrating mainly on work and my house. It showed in a couple events, like a 200 Fly in which I nearly could not complete. YES, James couldn't do a continuous 200 yard Fly! In November I did a 2:20ish stopping at the 100, 125, and 150 of the race for a 3-4 second breather turn. Gotta do what you gotta do, right?

Well, fast forward to last month, in a SCMeter meet, where I had no problem doing a 2:27 200 SCM Fly after a 400 IM and 1500 Free on Friday night, on my way to a very good full weekend on hopeful Top Ten swims.

This coming weekend I will be attending my LMSC SCY Champs meet in Moscow, Idaho, where the fun will continue. To start off the meet, I have the 400 IM, followed by 1650, then a while later have the 200 Fly and 200 IM. Sunday just the 500 Free and 100 Breast, but still a full weekend. I'm looking forward to the 400 IM "race to the death" against Ellen Reynolds. I'm assuming she's going for the 50-54 National record, since her entry time is just a mere second away, and she's had some previous good races with me in that race before. Not chicking me this time Ellen!

I'm hoping to get a video of the race, and if so will FB post it. If you're not my buddy yet, you better find me! My name is common, but it's still not hard to find me with all my common swimmer friends from USMS and beyond!

It was a crowded morning at the Y pool this morning, and I'm glad I had some others set up to do a good circle swim workout from the start. We did have some other guy get in with us for a bit, but he moved out quick enough.

omFg, I am a hurting little boy right now!! And that's just from getting out of the pool an hour ago. In fact, I was pretty much done around 6:30am in the middle of the swim, and tried to keep going. I've already hit the Advil bottle early this morning, but probably should've done so prior to the workout! I'll try to make this Monday morning swim a habit though. I was able to swim with Jared (16yrs) and Jordan (a 14 yr. female) this morning. We did basically an IM workout, and it was a killer. This guy had to take a few extra breaks here and there, but I managed.

**On the 3 x 300 IM no flys, I did the first one as is, but came in right on the sendoff, and had to skip a 50 of the back on #2. I just went ahead and did this on the remaining 300s, so did (50 Back, 100 Breast, 100 Free)

On the Fast 50s Fly, 1st round I went :30, :31, then held :32s
On the 2nd round I went :31, :32, :31, :32, :31, :32
Completely dead in the arms and shoulders after this workout! Definitely way harder than doing my normal "all-free cruise around the lap lane" workouts of late.

I did enjoy swimming with the two others, as they definitely pushed me, even if I was playing the caboose for much of the swim! Jordan was surprised that I wasn't going in the lead. I told her I'm a year older, and way more out of shape than last year.

It was semi-crowded in the pool today, 3 lap lanes available, and we ended up with 3 swimming in each lane. The normal 4th lap lane against the wall was occupied by a handicapped person who needed it because of the chairlift that is attached to that side of the pool. I still got in a good amount of swimming, getting a lane with 2 others who know how to circle swim, just not as fast as me.

8 x 50 Fly (80% effort) @ about 1:00-1:30 interval. Was just resting enough to be ready to go again. The last one I went hard on and did a :30.
(400/2400)

100 EZ

-----------------------------
2500 Yards

Last night I sent in my entries for the Apple Capital USAS Meet from May 30-June 1. It's the first LCM meet of the season here in the Inland Empire, and only 2 miles away. One other masters swimmer that I know of from Bellevue is swimming as well, but only because his daughters are coming over. We tend to get a few adults swimming in this meet, most of them being coaches from the Seattle teams.

I'm doing the 400 Free/400 IM on Friday, 100 Free, 50 Fly, 200 Fly on Saturday, and the 200 Free, 100 Fly, 200 IM on Sunday. Not quite as "gung-ho" as I usually do, but I don't really need to kill myself...this is my "Michael Phelps comeback meet".

Monday afternoon I was with my kids at their soccer games, and I decided to help out my son's team warmup for the game. Nothing serious, just sit in the goal and block shots, etc. 8 year olds, how bad can it be? Well, Lesson #1, don't play soccer with open toed sandals... I had a kid come in close, he made his shot and the followthru of his kick caught my big toe on my right foot, and completely ripped off the toenail. Nothing left at all. Just a little ouchy, but I'll live. I took a few days out from the pool, as well as just R&R at home (still went to work) till this morning.

I felt like a fish out of water this morning in the pool. My cardio is pretty much gone, and my stroke felt like garbage. My toe hurt a bit as my feet would kick in the water, occasionally striking each other as they passed.

2 x 200 Free warmup
I had to pause at the 200 to stretchout my right shoulder. Something just isn't right in there...gotta be getting old I guess.
(400/400)

Finished off with a 200 EZ. My body was sore enough, and my cardio got a good kickstart back into action. Have to try again soon.

-------------------------------
2600 Yards

It felt good knowing that I could maintain Stewart's intervals and times on the 400s pull that he did earlier in the week. Yeah, it doesn't matter that mine was SCY vs. his LCM set.

I've also decided to register for the 2nd half of the season with USA-S to compete in the LCM meets. We have 3 available here in Wenatchee this summer. Apple Capital May 30-June 1st, Starlight Invite in early July, and the LSC Champs meet in late July. I can get my money's worth that way, but I have to get into shape to swim with the kids in meets. Can't fake that!!

After skipping out on the NW Zone meet this past weekend, I suddenly began to feel a lot better as far as my neck goes (isn't that the way it always is??). Really it was just rest and time to wait it out. Saturday was good to watch my kids at the soccer games, though with two of them in two different nearby towns at nearly the same time, I didn't get to see all of my son's game before I had to leave for my daughter's game. She definitely has improved a lot over this past year. While playing center-midfield, she got a run down the middle after a ball and drove all the way to the goal, only to have her shot caught by the goalie. So close!, but I was still quite proud of her.

Sunday, I did my own form of massage therapy: Rototilled the garden and more. I have a very old yet very old reliable 8HP rototiller that my dad's friend gave to us years ago. It is so powerful that it will basically self propel itself through the previously tilled dirt of the garden without much guidance from me. The harder part of the job was answering my wife's request to basically double the size of the garden this year. The good thing is that that 8HP tiller will cut into dry hardened ground without too much effort on my part. We pulled up tons of rocks, and got them cleared. Found a few other items in the ground as well, glass, metal parts, etc. The biggest item I found was a metal water pipe with a "T" fitting on it. It was an 1 1/2" pipe about 18" long overall. The rototiller definitely bucked hard when I got that one, but kept going no problem.
It was already a pretty good size, but now it's about the size of a small house in square footage, or maybe I should measure in acreage!! I do have a 1/2 acre lot, so I would guess that I'm using about 1/10th of the total lot on my garden space.

I was tired last night, after about a 6 hour ordeal of physical work, plus got my springtime tan started, as it was a clear, sunny warm day yesterday, and I always work shirtless like a good boy should. As a swimmer I have to have a "realistic" tan line when I get to the pool!

Monday morning:

I woke up this morning half expecting to be in pain again, but it was basically non-existent. I went to the pool to do a stretchout swim, and it felt like I'd been out of the water forever. Basically I'm starting over again, building into long course meters season for competitions. I will have 3 LCM meets available here in Wenatchee this summer. The two normal ones - Apple Capital in early June, and Starlight Invite in early July, as well as the LSC Champs meet in late July. So I guess I can pick and choose my events this summer rather than trying to cram them all into one meet.

I awoke last Monday morning with one of the worst pains in my neck/upper back/right shoulder that I've even had. I don't believe it's from anything I did at the meet with my swimming at LMSC Champs last weekend...I just think I slept a bit funny or something overnight.

It was super painful, and I've been managing to get through work every day this week, and it's gradually been getting better, but every morning it feels like Bill Murray in the movie "Groundhog Day". I've swim a little bit on Wednesday, Thursday, and again this morning, but it really wasn't much. Thursday's swim was by far the best day though. I managed to do a set of descending 10x100s @ 1:45 interval, going from 1:07, down to 1:01s and holding them there for the final five 100s.

I figured I'd be good to go this weekend, but then this morning I awoke with the pain pretty bad again. I could barely manage to get through 1500 yards in the pool at a nice 'n easy pace, let alone put some effort into the swim. I decided that it wouldn't be worth my time this weekend, especially since 4 of my 5 events are dealing with butterfly in some way/shape/form: 100 & 400 IM, 50 & 200 Fly, and 1000 Free. Ideally I wanted to throw down a good 400 IM, and try to better my 200 Fly time (2:11) from last November, as well as give Kirk Nelson a run for his money in the 1000 Free. I'm the #2 seed to him, and behind us two, it was a ways back to the #3 overall seed.

Oh well...it's just a meet, and I won't have to throw away gas money this weekend...and I get to watch my kids at soccer as well. On a side note...my wife did some work on my back and neck an hour ago, and it feels much better. I told her I may go to Seattle anyway...and she gave me a look like I had better not!

I had a great time in Moscow this weekend. I was a bit unsure about how I would perform based on my recent lack of swimming very much on a consistent basis. I proved otherwise that you don't need to swim a lot to swim well in competitions. It's mostly based on how much you want to swim well when the gun goes off! And a bit of toughness as well to get through the hard stuff, even when your body tells you it can't be done!
I did do a shavedown for this meet, just for the heck of it to see what happens, plus I wore my Finis Hydrospeed suit that I purchased for the Indy 2013 Nationals last year. Just maybe...everything worked out well...

Saturday:

1000 Free - 11:00.43
27.99 / 31.78
32.73 / 32.74 (2:04)
33.08 / 33.22
33.22 / 33.15
33.34 / 33.52 (5:24) <--this was a season best 500 time as well
33.89 / 33.57
34.10 / 34.23
33.99 / 34.61
33.68 / 33.54
32.82 / 31.23
I got out really quick, almost without knowing it. I settled down pretty well, but then the hurt train got me after the 600 point. I was able to recover to finish strong, mainly because I was watching the clock and doing the math...figured I may get under 11:00, and did my best to do so, but a bit short.

200 Free - 1:56.05
27.21 / 29.77 / 30.12 / 28.95
This was a phenominal race for me. It happened about 30 minutes after I got out of the 1000, and I had a racer 2 lanes over from me: 24 year old Matt Edde, who has given me some recent battles in the 100/200/400/500 Frees at recent meets. Every time I tried to accelerate and dust him, I'd look over on the next turn, and he was RIGHT THERE!! I couldn't leave him like I used to be able to, but as it turns out, we both did excellent!
This time was just 1.4 seconds slower than what I did at Indy last year, when I was training full time, with a full taper as well.

200 Free Relay - went 2nd, split a 23.72Wow! I do have a bit of speed in there!!
Tom (36 yrs) led off 24.4
James (36 yrs) 23.72
Bill (67 yrs) 28.9 <-- I was most surprised by this split!
Rick (60 yrs) 31.8

200 IM - 2:13.30
27.41 / 35.01 / 39.35 / 31.53
This was fun. I was stroke for stroke with another guy for the first 100, but he didn't have the breaststroke skillz to hang after that. I ended up sucking a little wind on the final 50 to home, but I was happy with the overall result.

As this swim was WAYYYYY too early in the morning for my body (9:15am), I really wasn't even consciously awake at the time we dove in. I decided I'd swim alongside Pat Lee next to me (who was a 19:48 entry time - he finished 19:18).
The first 100 of the race I just had fun playing off the walls, SDKing for about 8 big kicks off each wall, just staying nice and relaxed. Afterward, Pat said he hoped I wasn't going to be doing that the whole way!! I guess SDKing can be a psychological advantage to your competition in events like this!
Well, I let Pat take the lead, and I basically swam right off his hip (almost through the laneline) for the 1st half of the race. At the 700/750 it felt like he was fading a bit, so I decided to make my move and get the race going (the bolded split). I ended up going 6 seconds faster than my other swim this season, so that was nice.

50 Back in the 200 Medley Relay: 30.13
SDK'ed for as much legal distance as I could, but still a far cry from some 50-something female swimmer on the east coast!

200 Fly - 2:50.67***
I did this as 8 x Broken 25s!
There were only two of us in the event, and I wasn't feeling like trying to kill myself on this race. I already have a 2:11 in the books for the season, and I have another shot at it in Federal Way at the NW Zone meet next Saturday. So I decided to swim "with" the other swimmer in the heat with me, waiting until he'd gone through the turn and began the next length. And I got beat too by 0.3 seconds!! He thanked me for swimming alongside him, saying it helped him keep going strong.

500 Free - 5:15.80 (WOW!!!!!!!!!)
28.29 / 31.46
32.17 / 32.25
32.15 / 32.02
32.20 / 32.22
31.98 / 31.06
This was just great!! Only about 5 seconds slower than my best masters time that I did last year at Indy Nationals. My middle 300 was split very very consistent too. I honestly don't know where this swim came from, because I was basically a zombie getting up onto the blocks. I guess it's the "I don't give a $#!+" attitude I had beforehand that helped.

Maybe I'll have to continue working on my house more, doing lots of overtime at work, and try adding some new outdoor gardening/landscaping/other springtime projects to my resume!!! Cut the swimming out, and just do the meets!!

===========================

Now I have the NW Zone SCY Champs meet to worry about next Saturday over in Federal Way. I signed up on the last day (Friday), as did a bunch of others from my LMSC. Maybe we'll even have some relays for fun!!!
I'm signed up for:
400 IM - 4:49.00 entry
200 Fly - 2:15.00 entry
50 Free - 27.10 entry (swimming it as 50 Fly)
100 IM - 1:02.10 entry
1000 Free - 11:05.00 entry

Warmup / get the heartrate going:Changed the two drive belts on my car, one for the alternator and the A/C, the other for the power steering and water pump. The first of the two was about to dump me out along the highway this weekend had I not noticed the problem yesterday. Luckily I have the time and skills to get them done.

After that, keep it going with a moderate main set:
Went to the '83 Toyota pickup that's been up on jackstands for a couple days, and got the brake cylinder changed that had burst on the rear right wheel. Also got the brake lines purged and everything back and running, as well as changing the snow tires back to regular tires. I had these on from my last trip to Seattle when I got snowed it at the Kirkland masters meet.

Not bad, two cars in one morning, and a grand total spent of $55. $35 for the belts, $12 for the brake cylinder, and $8 for the brake fluid. Not bad for a do-it-yourself guy. Way better than going to a mechanic, which I've still yet to do.

Cooldown:
A day of work from 2:30-11:00pm or so. At least the plant is on a 'shutdown shift', meaning they're ending production for the week, so we'll only run the stuff about 1/2 the day, then change a few bearings or other things, plus tear down the plant for the cleanup crew later tonight.

What a hell of a taper day!!! I did get in 1,200 yards yesterday morning, which is plenty.
LMSC Champs this weekend, 1000 Free, 200 Free, 200 IM on Saturday, 1650, 200 Fly, 500 Free on Sunday.

I also signed up for the PNA Champs/NW Zone Champs today (final day to sign up). I found out yesterday that I won't be working on Saturday next week (the 12th), so I went for it!!
400 IM, 200 Fly, 50 Fly(in the 50 Free event), 100 IM, 1000 Free

I just checked out SwimPhone for my champs meet this weekend. 55 people entered, and only 2 lucky souls in the 200 Fly. Me and someone else. I wonder who's going to be with me. At least it'll be 2 of us suffering our way through the race!!

20 x 50 Free Pull w/ paddles @ ~:45-1:00, depending on where the other two were in the lane with me.
(1000/2000)
It was tough to swim with two others today, especially when people can't seem to organize by speed. Granted, there weren't two others as fast as me in the water, but at least figure out that if you're not able to 'keep up', you probably should try to circle swim with the fastest one in the pool.

Various distances of swimming and/or intensity of Free and Fly
(500/2500)

500 Flutter Kick w/ board
At least with kicking I can circle swim with the others a bit easier.

800 Free warmup
I was swimming alongside a guy that just 'goes and goes' and has some decent speed as well. It takes my 400 yards to lap him, and I did so twice in my 800. It was nice to have a 'rabbit' of sorts to chase after in my attempt to lap him.
(800/800)

10 x 50 Flutter Kick w/ board @ 1:00 (:47s)
(500/1300)

4 x 150 Free Pull @ 2:00 (held 1:45s)
This was the first pulling I've done where I actually sort of 'went for it' with some pressure and speed on my arms. Didn't seem to hurt, but we'll see later today.
(600/1900)

10 x 50 Flutter Kick w/ board @ 1:00
mostly all :45s, a couple :46s, and the last one at :42
(500/1000)

100 Free cruise
(100/1100)

8 Rounds of:

75 Free @ 1:00
50 Free @ :40
25 Free @ :20

into 50 EZ @ 1:00

75 Free @ :55
50 Free @ :35
25 Free @ :15

into 50 EZ @ 1:15

75 Free @ :55
50 Free @ :35
25 Free @ :15
(1600/2700)

The first 8 rounds of aerobic were good, but I just wasn't getting 'what I need' out of it, so I decided to turn on the afterburners for a couple a quick short rest bursts at the end. They were tough, but doable. Basically it's a 150 Free with 2 open turns in the middle @ 1:45 interval!!

100 Free EZ
200 Floaty Flutter Kick w/ board

--------------------------------
3000 Yards

That was fun! and I did a full workout without toys (a kickboard doesn't count in my book)

My first swim in a week, and only my 2nd swim since my SCM meet on March 7-8th! For now, I'm just trying to "get my money's worth" out of my monthly YMCA membership.

I did manage to swim 6 of the first 8 days of the month, and then one 4 days later, and then again tonight. So 8 swims out of 19 days isn't all bad, right? That's still not even an average of every other day...and yet I still call myself a distance swimmer. I can still hold pace well, and have a little speed to go with it, just don't have a 100% tank to draw from when I need it. Oh well, I'll get back to swimming like I used to one of these years...

Tonight, splitting a lap lane alongside the swimming lesson groups on the other half of the pool:

Good news, my shoulder felt fine the whole time. No popping, grinding, or other funky things going on. That's a good sign, but I'm still going to stay away from the paddles for a while, and take it sorta easy when I do get back in the water again...which may be a week or so.

I do have my LMSC Champs coming up on April 5-6 in Moscow, Idaho, of which I signed up for the 200, 500, 1000, 1650 Free, 200 Fly, and 200 IM.

3 full days out of the water since the meet on Friday/Saturday for me. It felt like an eternity, but was good to get in today, even if it was just 40 minutes.

500 Free warmup - felt a bit sluggish on this
(500/500)

8 x 50 Flutter Kick w/ board @ 1:00 (:50s)
(400/900)

22 x 75 Free @ 1:00 (held most of them around :55-:57, the last few (6) were at :55 down to :52)
Not bad for a broken mile on a 22:00 total interval. I'd guess I was around a 20:20ish total add up time. Not bad considering it was little to no effort.
(1650/2550)

50 EZ was all the time I had left for
got the boot from the pool at 1:00pm!!

This was a long, long, very tiresome "weekend" for me. Mainly due to the fact that I haven't been training as well as I'd hoped I would've been at this point. But on the other hand I had quite a few good things happen too. First of all, my shoulder had very little to no pain over the weekend. The only hurtful swim was the 100 Free of all the events I did. Probably because I tried going too "all out" on it, and my body wasn't quite ready for that. Ibuprofin before the meet on both days did the trick though.

Friday night:

Warmups began at 7:00PM - <<<< Yep, that's right. 7:00 warmup, 7:45 meet start. They had 2 heats of 400 IM, 4 heats of 1500 Free, and 2 heats of 200 Fly. A true Brute Squad set of events on schedule, and I did them all.

400 IM - 5:14.55
31.21 / 37.14 (1:08.35)
42.19 / 40.33 (1:22.52)
45.89 / 47.18 (1:33.07)
36.62 / 33.99 (1:10.61)
Tiring race as it usually is. I took the fly easy, and was surprised with how quick I was. I swam this right next to Ellen Reynolds, 50 year old from Boise who was going for the WR time in the event...which she ended up tying exactly. I did beat her by 0.10 seconds, which is enough!! My fly gave me a big enough lead to hold off her backstroke, and the breaststroke I pulled away a bit, though I was shortening up greatly near the end. As I started free, I was dead, and it hurt. Ellen reeled me in on the first 25, and I did all I could to stay with her. It came down to the final surge on the last length to not get beat....and I was lucky on this one. It took nearly an hour to recover from this too!!

1500 Free - 19:18.46 (800 split - 9:51.12)
31.76 / 36.04
36.59 / 36.58
36.69 / 37.03
37.14 / 37.36 (4:49.19)
37.66 / 37.46
37.68 / 37.66
38.01 / 38.05
38.03 / 37.38 (9:51.12) At this point I pulled my cap off...cooled down a 25 Back, and just cruised to the end alongside Larry Krauser who I was a 50 ahead of at this point.
53.11 / 40.66
39.86 / 39.39
39.65 / 39.50
39.05 / 39.53
39.24 / 39.53
39.99 / 39.42
39.24 / 39.17
It was a consistent race as far as pace goes. I was slowly slipping upward from the 300 point to the 800 point though. My game plan was just to go through the 800 "hard", and then cool down after that anyway.

10:00pm (and 5 minutes/1 heat of 200 Fly rest before my 200 Fly)200 Fly - 2:30.95
32.65 / 38.59 (1:11.24)
40.76 / 38.95 (1:19.71)
I almost made this a come from behind win. It's not often that I'm behind in the 200 Fly in my LMSC, and the guy ahead of me was wayyyyyy ahead of me. About 4+ bodylengths (seriously) at the 175. But I could see that he was dying hard. BIG piano hit him a few times. I outsplit him by over 6 seconds in the final 50 to almost outtouch him at the finish (missed by 0.4). I just didn't have the power after just getting out of the 1500 Free to be able to.

====================================

Saturday (warmups 11:00am, meet starts 11:45am):

400 Free - 4:42.85
32.04 / 35.09
35.60 / 35.81
36.18 / 36.31
36.41 / 35.41
I had a race for the first 200 with a 22 year old next to me...same one that gave me a race in the 200 Free a couple months ago. Around the 300 I was hurting a bit, but kept on kicking to get through it. Managed to pull something out that is good enough.

100 Free - 1:00.84
29.20 / 31.64
This was actually a little painful on my shoulder. Probably too much raw speed and power needed for this event. 22 year old Matt beat me for the first time today. I knew I couldn't do it.

200 Medley Relay - Bill (68), James (37), Jack (82), Rick (61).
Yep, I was stuck with the breaststroke leg of the relay. By default...2 guys couldn't do it because of their knees, and the other one Jack wouldn't have helped much by doing breaststroke. I split a low 36 though, so that was good. We had fun...just missing the Inland NW record in the event for the 240+ age group...though another relay team from CDA crushed us and the record time too.

100 Fly - 1:04.89
30.24 / 34.65
Not too shabby!! I ended up getting 2nd place overall to the same guy who beat me in the 200 Fly the night before. But I was coming on the final length and almost go him again.
It's kind of weird how close my 100 Fly time is to my 100 Free time, and how fly doesn't seem to hurt my shoulder either. ????

25 Fly (unsanctioned) - 13.31 - pure fun!

25 Free (unsanctioned) - 34.45 - "dove" in, kinda, and did V-sit scull drill to the other end. I heard lots of cheers and comments from the crowd.

200 Back - 2:36.75
36.37 / 40.13
40.62 / 39.63
This was another race I was in with Ellen Reynolds. I can say that I did beat her off the start and to the 15 meter mark (she has horrible starts and underwaters). Once I started swimming though, she was gone!! Another WR for her...going 2:22!!!!

200 IM - 2:35.76
31.44 / 41.65
46.61 / 36.06
The arch of my foot cramped on the 2nd length of the fly, and it was all downhill from that point. Cardio wise...I was dead tired at this point of the meet as well.

400 Free Relay - Leadoff spot (immediately after the 200 IM)1:04.8530.77 / 34.08
Only thing more painful than a 200 Free was THIS 100 Free.

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Overall a fun weekend of swimming. I'm sure some of these times will be good enough for Top Tens...hopefully. Oh well, I did the best I could.